The present invention refers to a leaf of a door or a gate with a plurality of plates hingedly connected via hinge connections, the plates being pivotable with respect to each other when they are moved from the open position to the closing position or visa versa, wherein the plates each have a front wall and a rear wall as well as at least one plate edge resting against a respective plate edge of an adjacent plate, a first plate edge has a profile with a profile section having a substantially concave design, a second plate edge lying opposite thereto having a convex-shaped profile section being complementary to the concave-shaped profile section, the curvatures of the concave-shaped or convex-shaped profile sections partially extending in a curved manner, in particular in a circular manner, or extending in a polygonal form approximately tracing the course of the curve and, with centers of the circle approximately lying near or adjacent to the hinged axis or with polygonal focal points lying in a direction towards the respective adjacent hinge axis.
Such a door leaf is for instance known from European patent publication 370 376 B1. During the movement from the open position into the closing position or viceversa, the plates of such a door leaf--in particular of a sectional gate--which are hingedly connected to each other successively in the direction of motion, travel through a curved guide region which is located between the approximately vertically directed straight-line guide section for receiving the door leaf in the closing position and the approximately horizontally extending guide section for receiving the door leaf in the open position. To this end, the plates are articulated at each other by hinges, the hinge axis of which extends at the inner side of the door leaf, that means at the rear wall of the door leaf and, thus, at the door leaf side facing the interior of the building room or the like to be closed by means of the door leaf. In order to prevent the creation of a gap between adjacent plates in pivoting positions thereof resulting from travelling through the curved guide region, into which gap the fingers of a person may be inserted unintentionally or in the course of an inappropriate manual handling of the door leaf, the front faces of the respective adjacent plates, which face each other, are of a more or less circularly arched design in cross-section and, with the center of the circular arc, lie approximately in the hinge axis. As a result, between the two arched front faces which face each other a gap is formed, respectively, which extends continuously between the outer side and the inner side of the door leaf. When leaving out of account separately provided elastic sealing strips, in the gap region of the outer side of the door leaf between the outer walls of the plates a joint is left free which passes over into the gap region between the concave and convex profile section. Said joint simulates a bead and also serves for the protection against jamming, as thereby it is prevented that the fingers get squeezed-in in the region of the front wall of the door leaf between the nose formed by the concave profile section and the opposed shoulder formed at the convex profile section.
The characteristics of the geometry in the region of the plate edges have already been known from German patent publication 216 816 dating from the year 1908. Therein, there has already been proposed a complementary convex or concave shaping for the opposed edges at a revolving door with strap hinges for preventing injuries caused by squeezing-in at the pivoting edge of the door.
In particular in case of larger gates or doors it is desirable that the plate thickness can be varied over the height of the gate. Hereto it is necessary according to prior art to provide separate transition plates or adapter plates which, at their respective contacting edges, are adapted to the thickness of the adjacent plates.